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All of the red-black tree algorithms that have been proposed are characterized by a worst-case search time bounded by a small constant multiple of log N in a tree of N keys, and the behavior observed in practice is typically that same multiple faster than the worst-case bound, close to the optimal log N nodes examined that would be observed in a perfectly balanced tree.

Specifically, in a left-leaning red-black 2-3 tree built from N random keys: